Pepper wrapped both arms around him and gave him a squeeze. “I love you, too, Danny. You and the babies and Jen. I love you all. That saved me today.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll tell you later. Right now, I just don’t want to think.”
“Okay.”
They sat there and let the flames warm their faces until well after dark. Then the platoon loaded up in the trucks and drove home.
Chapter Six
“Your son shouldn’t use Mommy as a soccer ball,” Jenny said, rubbing her tummy. “Here… talk to this child.”
She grabbed my hand and put it on her belly. I could feel the little one jump underneath my touch. Before long, the kicking stopped. I never could explain that. The baby always calmed down when I rubbed him.
The light of dawn had just brightened the bedroom enough so we could see.
“I went over to the house with Boss Connie and Cypher yesterday,” Jenny said, her breath rising in a white cloud. It was definitely winter; it got cold as hell in the house at night. “We got on the computer and got in touch with the CDC up at Northwestern Illinois University. They want us to come up.”
“The vaccine?” Pepper asked from my other side.
Jenny rolled over and put our baby against my hip. She rested her chin on my chest. “Yeah. They say they've finalized the vaccine. Something else, too.”
“What’s that?” I asked, playing with her long, dark hair.
“The doc says they have an anti-virus. You get infected, you have twelve hours to get injected, and it kills the virus in your system. After twelve hours, it’s too late.”
“Better than blowing off someone’s head.” I reflected.
Pepper groaned. “Baby needs to stop making Mommy so sick.”
She let out a sudden grunt, then flipped off the covers. She dashed to the bathroom in her long johns. We could hear her puking through the closed door.
“I don’t remember your morning sickness being this bad,” I said to Jenny.
“Every woman’s different. It’ll pass.”
We listened as Pepper retched again. Jenny poked me in the ribs.
“Okay, okay.” I rolled out of bed, gathered Pepper’s robe, and took it to the bathroom.
Pepper was still hunched over the toilet when I stepped in. I draped the robe over her shoulders. She heaved again, and I handed her a wet washcloth.
“It’s clean,” she muttered. “I thank God for that every morning.”
“What?”
“My puke. It’s clean.” Pepper held out her hand, and I pulled her to her feet. I dumped a bucket of water into the toilet and washed the mess down the pipes. “Every morning, I worry I’m going to find blood in the toilet when I’m done. I’ve had nightmares about it.”
I took her in my arms. She held tight. I’d never thought of it before, but it was a scary thought. If the virus was airborne, what was to keep it out? With as many frozen Zeds as we’d burned in the last couple of weeks, I was surprised no one had come down with the infection.
“You guys done in there?” Heather called. “My turn to barf.”
Heather and Pepper were due about the same time, Bill and I figured. Sandy and Jenny, too. It all just seemed normal now. I grinned at Pepper, and we exited the bathroom.
“Next,” I said.
Heather rushed in, followed by Bill.
“Does this ever end?” he asked.
“No,” Pepper said, grinning as Heather retched into the stool. “It’s men’s punishment for doing this to us women.”
“I didn’t hear any complaints when it happened,” Bill muttered as he closed the door.
I laughed. “I didn’t, either, come to think of it.”
Pepper nudged me in the ribs. “That’s ‘cause orgasms give us ladies temporary amnesia.”
“Ah.”
Arms linked, we stepped back into the bedroom. Jenny had the heater turned up as she dressed. She gave Pepper a hug as we came in. Not for the first time, I marveled over how much the two looked alike. Both had dark hair, brown eyes, about the same height and build. They could be sisters but for the fact Pepper was Mexican and Jenny was French-Canadian. Pepper still kept her hair cut boy-short, but it looked a damn sight better than the purple Mohawk she sported when she came to us.
We dressed, pulling on our new winter BDU coats. They were a gift from my younger brother Tom. He was ranking man on the Rock Island Arsenal when it got closed off. When Tom found out I was alive, he'd flown down to us in on of his four Blackhawk Superbirds. He brought with him a selection of uniforms bearing our patch: the old Seventh Cavalry saber crossed with an M-16. Pretty cool.
I'd thought Tom dead for six months prior to contact. I didn’t realize how much it affected me, until we both started bawling the moment he landed that bird out there in the road. We got through the awkward moments when I introduced him to my girls. He hadn’t seen his wife or little daughter since the outbreak back in early May. Neither of us had heard from our folks or sister since then.
Downstairs, we filled the heater with kerosene and lit the lamps. As the warmth chased the chill from the house, Jenny took Pepper to grab a shower in one of the red-door houses. Bill joined me to help fix breakfast. The girls had grown sensitive to smells. Fish and eggs were guaranteed to send them off to hurl their guts again. In due time, Heather and Sandy left to hit the showers as well. We had one big upstairs bedroom open now. When John killed himself, his girlfriend Cathy moved back in with her sister and her husband in their house. We figured with four pregnant women under our roof, we better start thinking about setting up the spare room as a nursery.
I flipped open the shutters in the kitchen to let in some light. Cloudy and windy out. The girls had already disappeared into the snow.
“Looks like we got some more last night,” Bill mentioned. He peeled potatoes and dropped them in a pan of water to soak.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Looks like better than six inches out there now.”
“Word from the scouts?”
“Not yet. It’s a long trip to Peoria, even on a sled.”
We had a dozen snowmobiles from around town that now served as scout vehicles. The roads were snowed shut. We’d sent five crew members out two days ago to see what was going on in Peoria. Several little towns were empty, and we burned whatever deaders we found. Folks in the town of Henry had secured themselves like we did in Snareville, but the Illinois River still opened at their backs. We’d allied ourselves with them and sent a load of AK-47 and SKS rifles and ammo over their way.
“Hope they get back soon,” Bill said.
“Maybe the weather's slowed them down.”
I cracked some eggs into a bowl, whipped them up, and poured them into a skillet on the camp stove.
“Maybe. Makes me worry.”
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. It was Christmas Eve, and we'd planned a big get-together throughout town. Everyone would gather to celebrate. We invited the Mennonites from Plow Ridge, too. There would be an evening service at the Methodist church, as it was the only place in town big enough to hold everybody. A meal would come afterward. Folks were already cooking hog, deer, and turkey that we’d killed, along with the veggies we'd canned over the summer. Pies had been baked. A walk through town yielded a treat of aromas.
Near sundown, the scouts came back with dismal news. Peoria was a pit. Our people witnessed two distinct camps: those trying to put their lives back together and the nuts living the apocalypse dream. Both sides killed one another indiscriminately, right along with the Zeds.
“Felt like I was watching The Stand,” Tony said. “It’s nuts down there. I kept waiting for someone to drag in a nuke with a quad runner.”
“They find out where you were from?” Kenny asked.
“We didn’t slow down much,” Catfish Cori said. “We tried to stay out of the way. They couldn’t follow us too well on the sleds.”
“This could be a bad thing come spring,” I said.
“They get mobile, they might come scrounging.”
“We’ll keep Henry informed, and we’ll keep our eyes to the south,” Kenny said.
We saw a good church service that evening. Pastor Fritz of the Mennonites traded duties back and forth with Pastor Bengston of the Methodists. With Father Ed dead, the Catholics turned out to share the non-denominational service. No one asked why this had happened to us. No one blamed God for the Zeds. The pastors thanked the Lord for the blessings we had—that we were secure and had food, and that many of us had found love and would have children born to us soon. Privately, some of us might have wondered if God even knew what was going on down here, but the pastors were right. We did have a lot of blessings the other communities didn’t share.
Afterward, we gathered in one of the big Victorian mansions in town. The food was excellent. I think everyone ate too much. Come the next day, we would return to our regular diet, but that night was a time for feasting and trading gifts.
The gifts were looted from the deserted shops of Princeton, mostly for the kids. We wanted to try to keep their lives as close to those they remembered as we could. Many of our children had been orphaned in the outbreak, and folks in town had taken them in. The younger ones got toys and such. We found clothing for the older ones. Families got battery-powered DVD players or radios to share, along with a supply of fresh batteries.
I got Jenny and Pepper some flannel pajamas and heavy socks. They got me some cologne they liked and some flannel pj's of my own.
As everyone began to wind down, I sat on one of the big couches in the formal front room of the house. Most of my platoon was there, as well as some of the Mennonites from Plow Ridge and both pastors. Pepper sat in my lap with her head resting against my chest. With one hand, I played with her short, dark hair. Jenny cuddled to my right, snuggled in tight against my shoulder. They were both nearly asleep.
I still had something else for each of them, and I figured I better speak up before they started to snore. I nudged them until they sat up, albeit with some whining.
With them blinking sleepily at me, I reached into a pocket. I pulled out two small boxes. Getting down on one knee in front of both my girls, I opened up my real gifts to them.
“I had to guess at your sizes,” I said, “since there wasn’t anyone there to help me. I love you two. I’ve never been happier, and I want to spend the rest of my life with both of you and our children. Jennifer, Pepper… would you girls marry me?”
They looked at me, then at one another. Both of them said yes. Both of them cried. I think I shed a few tears, too. They were so important to me. I couldn’t think of not having them around.
I slid a ring on for each of them. Neither of my girls was the flashy type, so I didn’t get anything too big or too fancy. Jenny got gold, and Pepper got white gold. I stood and wrapped both of them up in my arms.
“How’re we gonna do this?” Jenny asked after a while, wiping her eyes. “Last I knew, it wasn’t legal to have more than one wife.”
I laughed. Of all the things to worry about.
“I don’t think there’s anyone one around to tell us what’s legal or not, baby,” I said, kissing the top of her head.
“What about the preachers?” Pepper asked.
Pastor Fritz cleared his throat beside us. “Danny and I talked about it, Pepper. We’ve concluded that having only one wife is a rather modern invention. I won’t stand in the way. I’d rather see you three wed than the way things have been.”
He married us right there. We stood beside the hearth and became Mister and Missus and Missus Jackson. It felt right. I didn’t know what would happen when it was all over—if it ever was. I didn’t know if any of us would see the end, but for now, it was enough. The girls joked about my ability to consummate both marriages, but we managed.
The next day, Pepper worked with me to load chunks of ice cut from the canal into one of the new ice houses we'd built over the summer. She seemed quieter than normal. Usually, Pepper was a talker, and I figured after getting married the night before, she’d have a lot to say. Instead, she appeared to be pretty deep in thought about something or another.
I pulled the quad runner up to the door, grabbed a pair of tongs from the inside wall, and grabbed a block of ice from the wagon. Pepper followed suit. I stepped inside and swung the thing into place.
“Danny, I’ve been thinking.”
“That’s dangerous,” I joked.
“Seriously. I think we need to get up to the CDC and get that vaccine.”
“You do?”
“Yes. Look at all the other vaccines we’ve got. Polio, chicken pox, mumps. What’s wrong with getting a vaccine against this virus? It’s a hell of a lot worse than chicken pox.”
I couldn’t argue that. “How do you propose we get there?”
“It’s only a couple of hours.”
“Normally. I don’t exactly think the plows have been out.”
“Well, yeah. But don’t we have a plow or two around town?”
She had me on that one. We did have two township plows, along with the two city trucks. We just never used them. We saved the fuel. Besides, where would we go that we couldn’t get to on the sleds or quads?
“We’ll talk about it. I can’t just up and leave without asking Kenny and the other platoon leaders.”
Two days later, we spoke with the people at the CDC via Skype. A week after that, we had a plow out on one of the township dump trucks. Someone had painted our unit's emblem on the doors with Raiders stenciled underneath. The word was out about our status as an Army-supported group. According to my brother Tom, we were the law in three surrounding counties. I hoped that would carry over into Chicago.
In the bed of the dump truck, we loaded thirty gallons of diesel in five-gallon jugs and strapped them down. We took twenty gallons of gas for the truck that would follow us. Boss Connie and Bill Yoder from Plow Ridge would bring one of the armored pickups along. Tony and Catfish Cori would accompany us as well. We all went armed, all wearing our new BDUs. Tony wore his old deputy's badge around his neck. We each carried our own rifle, along with a full ditty bag of magazines. Our pistols hung in our belts, and our pockets bulged with ammunition. Even with the Zeds frozen stiff, I didn’t like the thought of going cross-country unarmed.
Under the locking bed cover of the pickup, we packed the carcasses of a deer and two feral hogs. Up in the cities, Boss Connie told us, folks were living on canned hash and rat.
“Get home safe,” Jenny told me as we stood next to the idling diesel.
I hugged her. “I will.”
She turned to Pepper. The two shared a small kiss between them, then a hug, and we loaded into the cab. I waved goodbye to Jenny as I dropped the truck into gear, and she waved back as I headed for the gate. We left town the back way to avoid Princeton and its clogged streets. I hoped we wouldn’t run into a lot of dead traffic. We'd received assurances that the streets were pretty open to Northwestern Illinois University, where the CDC had set up shop.
I dropped the plow as we left the city limits behind us. With a path there, I shouldn’t have to plow the road to get back. The ride was rough. I hoped it wouldn’t be too hard on Pepper. She insisted on coming as much as we both insisted Jenny stayed at home.
Four hours later, we rolled into the secure zone around Northwestern. We showed the guards our IDs, and they let us in. At first, they insisted we leave our guns with them. Following a quick argument and our agreement that we wouldn’t go walking down the street with our ARs, and they relented. Good thing.
One of the guards asked if we were the Raiders from downstate they'd heard so much about. I told them we were and watched the guy’s mouth drop open. After that, they were much more accommodating. I thanked them and pulled into the campus town.
We found the right building, stopped in the parking lot, fueled the vehicles for the run home, locked them, and went inside. Doctor O’Shea met us. Huge man. He was the biggest paddy I’d ever seen. Six and
a half feet tall and broad across the beams, as my dad would have said. He probably earned his ride to college on a football scholarship. With a big smile on his mustached face, he shook our hands all around.
“I’m so glad you all made it up," he said. "I was worried. Normally, it’s not much of a trip, but these days…"
“Pretty smooth, Doc,” I said. “Only a few cars still left on the road. Interstate’s been cleared off pretty good.”
“The snow?”
“One of the advantages to coming from a small town. We borrowed one of the city trucks and plowed our way here.”
O'Shea laughed. “Smart man. But you didn’t come here to discuss the weather.”
He filled us in on the progress with the vaccine and the anti-virus. Both were now proven effective, but still not readily available in large quantities. Several facilities scattered around were hard at work to produce small batches, but the big drug companies weren’t in business anymore to speed things along. Plus, no one knew how many uninfected people were left.
“There were over three hundred and fifty million people in this country when the outbreak occurred," O'Shea told us. "This virus is an Ebola-Zaire-based infection. The Ebola alone has a ninety percent fatality rate. Combine that with a synthetic virus we’ve never seen before—one that reanimates dead tissue—and you have one nasty super bug on your hands.”
“How did you figure all of this out, Doctor?” Pepper asked carefully, squinting sideways at O'Shea. “Doesn't it normally take a long time to develop a vaccine?”
He eyed her. “How much training do you have, young lady?”
Pepper smiled. “Ten years as a trauma nurse at Saint Francis in Peoria.”
I stared at her. She’d never mentioned that before.
“Excellent hospital," O'Shea noted. "One of the best in the state. I’m surprised you made it past the initial outbreak. You must not have been on duty.”
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